Only Reconnect - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 124

farmers, increase green spaces in cities, and conserve local aesthetic
traditions. Slow food and cities have given regionalized food systems and
policies a name and a vision. Slow cities are also known as the Citta del Buon
Vivere - it is, after all, about creating a good life.
Another effort to connect up food systems on a large scale comes from,
perhaps, a surprising quarter. Unilever, one of the largest food businesses
in the world, is developing policies and processes that will eventually allow
it to source all primary agricultural produce from sustainable systems.
They are assessing sustainability according to a range of tough biological,
economic and social criteria, and are seeking to set standards to promote
transitions for a range of produce, including peas, spinach, tea and oil
palm. The central challenge, though, even for such a large operator, is to
change practices throughout a whole sector. Where produce is derived
from farms that have a direct relationship with a processing business, or
even from its own farms, then it is relatively easy to set out new practices.
But where a manufacturer buys a great deal on the open market, where it
is impossible to trace products back to the farm, then the only option is
to change a whole system. This is not easy and, inevitably, means moving
from a stance of enlightened self-interest to one addressing wider concerns
and the interests of a large number of stakeholders . There is, thus, an import-
ant role for small and large businesses in sustainable foodsheds.
These North American and European initiatives are good examples of
the benefits of integration, and represent policy and institutional responses
that can be taken, whatever the national and international policy context.
There are many promising signs of progress towards sustainability in
industrialized systems of agriculture. There are, equally, large forces
aligned against these that are determined to capture the value of the
commons before anyone notices. Perhaps it is all too late. Yet, if some of
these principles are more widely adopted, then we may well see a revolution
occur in industrialized farming and food systems. The principles are
simple. Adopt sustainable methods of food production. Organize farmers
into groups so that they can increase their marketing and purchasing
power, and share experiences and knowledge on the new path towards
sustainable agriculture. Organize consumers into groups, so that they can
exercise greater purchasing power. Make direct links between producers
and consumers so that the physical length of the food chain is shortened,
consumers are sure of the quality of the food they are buying and the
health of the system that produced it, and producers receive a greater
proportion of the food pound.